


The Council Job

by mpatientdreamr



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jossverse, Leverage
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 13:51:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpatientdreamr/pseuds/mpatientdreamr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Senior Partners had a sick sense of humor. Eliot Spencer might be the best hitter for hire but his brother was the Destroyer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Stilted Introduction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TouchoftheWind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TouchoftheWind/gifts).



> Author’s Notes: This is in response to TouchoftheWind’s Challenge.

Hardison cut his eyes towards the kid that’d just wondered into their headquarters and plonked himself down. He was cute, if you liked the short, quiet, antisocial type. Hardison was wondering why that description was pinging his inner alarm when the rest of the crew finally made their way in.

His questions were answered when Eliot, compactly built, grumpy Eliot, scowled and said, “Damn it Connor, again?” The kid just shrugged and Hardison’s estimation of him went up. Not many could withstand Eliot in a pissy mood. “This is the third kidnapping attempt in a month. Did you at least get one of them to talk?”

The others shifted worriedly but Connor just looked sheepish.

“I got sort of caught up,” he said, shrugging.

Eliot irritably yanked his hand through his flowing man-locks and Hardison made a mental note to avoid the growly one for the foreseeable future. Or maybe to do something incredibly irritating while he was already irritated. Hmm, choices, choices.

“Well, why’d you come here?” Eliot asked and Hardison was shocked because Eliot didn’t seem the type to turn away someone in need, especially someone Hardison greatly suspected was family. “You normally head back to that fortress you call home, hole up for a while.”

Connor frowned, lips pinching. “The boss-like guy took Dawn and left before I could get free. And since he’s a Norm, even if his minions aren’t, I need you to find them.”

Hardison was trying to control his face against the urge to raise eyebrows and signal to the rest of the team the equivalent of, ‘What the Hell?’ Mostly, he looked like he had Tourette’s. He also got the feeling that when Connor said Norm, he didn’t mean non-thieving types.

Eliot sighed and slumped, defeat in his every gesture. “Guys, this is my baby brother, Connor. Connor, these are my colleagues, Nate, Sophie, Parker, and Hardison. Connor works for the Watcher’s Council and he’s just lost the boss’s daughter.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Connor said grumpily, scowling. Hardison was having a hard time containing his glee because seriously. The resemblance was uncanny. They even had the same floppy hair and blue eyes. “They were really prepared. They had special chains and everything. And she’s not exactly the boss’s daughter.”

“Uh huh,” Nate said, rocking on his heels. “And the reason you’re not going to the Council with this? Because, from what I remember, they tend to take care of their own problems?”

The sheepish look returned and Eliot grumbled, “Aw, hell, Connor, tell me you weren’t banned from leaving the building.”

“Well, _I_ wasn’t,” Connor said, tapping his fingers on the table. “But, uh, Dawn was restricted.”

Nate sighed. “How old’s the girl?”

“Twenty-three,” Connor shrugged.

Parker snorted. “And they still ground her?”

“No,” Connor frowned. “Trouble just seems to find her, you know? So when they’re already knee deep, she’s supposed to stay on the grounds because they don’t have time to come fish her out of it. But, I mean, if we need a little back up, I know a couple of people.” He looked at Eliot. “My kind of back up. Not, er, yours.” He looked dubiously at the team and Hardison was a little insulted. Sure, they got into their share of trouble but they also managed to get themselves out of it.

“How not normal are the minions?” Eliot asked, frowning.

“Like Bangkok, not Seoul,” Connor said, which made no sense to Hardison but Eliot seemed to gleam something from it because he winced.

“Call them,” Eliot rasped, face sour. Hardison decided he’d definitely be avoiding him because he’d never seen that look of irritation before and it was best to leave something alone until he knew how it would react.

Connor once again glanced around at the team, then said as he stood, “I’ll just, uh, let you explain.” He stopped by Eliot as he walked past and wrapped a hand around his wrist. “We kind of need to hurry and they’re probably going to need to know.”

Hardison was intrigued because, seriously, he’d never seen Eliot’s face express much more than irritation, vicious glee, or a slight merriment, usually when Hardison himself had just done something admittedly stupid. But now, oh, _now_ , it was pained. 

“Who believes in magic?” Eliot asked and Hardison’s word tipped on its side because Eliot had always been the sensible one but apparently he was in dire need of a trip to a resting facility with padded walls. If his little brother had brought this on, this was going to be a long visit.


	2. The Sidekick's Sidekicks

Eliot loved his brother. Honest, he really loved him. But he did not, under any circumstances, love the shit that always seemed to find him. Connor had been in more life threatening situations than Parker and she regularly threw herself off of really high buildings. And once he got over the trouble, there were the friends. Connor’s brand of backup usually came with issues and otherworldly energy.

And today that meant a guy with a bunch of bracelets and a hoop through his lip and a pale girl with black hair that had white streaks framing her face. He thought about cracking a joke about pin cushions and too many X-Men: Evolution re-runs but stopped himself. Connor’s friends were usually ridiculously touchy about _everything_. He’d complimented one girl on her shirt and she’d _cried_. Eliot didn’t do tears. Unless he was purposefully causing pain, then tears were expected. God, they were making him crazy and he didn’t even know their names.

“Guys,” Connor said, stepping between the pair, “These are Carlos and Kit. They’re gonna be our long-distance hitters.”

Kit scowled and sketched a little wave. Carlos gave a little grin and nodded.

“They’re kids,” Nate said.

Eliot’s stomach dropped. That was Nate’s ‘I’m trying to find a way to say no without getting hit in the face’ tone. Or, for shorthand, his ‘Dealing With Parker’ tone. Not to mention Connor’s eyes had widened and he was slightly shaking his head. Apparently, these kids didn’t like to be called kids.

Kit raised a hand and snapped her fingers. The entire Leverage crew, including Eliot, zoomed towards the ceiling, stopping just short of smacking into it.

“Hey,” Eliot ground out. “I already _believe_ in magic.”

Kit studied him for a moment then snapped her fingers and he fell flat on his ass on the floor. Right, magic users were cranky little… _witches_. Cranky little witches. She smirked and Eliot had a bad feeling she read his mind and knew that ‘witches’ wasn’t his first word of choice.

“Look,” Kit finally said, voice a husky rasp, as she snapped her fingers and the rest of the team floated safely down from the ceiling. “You guys handle the human end and we’ll handle the magic end. It’ll be ruination from both ends.”

“Uh,” Connor started, only to be kicked in the shins by Kit, who was glaring at him.

Carlos snickered even as he said, “Of course, our ruination might accidentally get the dude eaten but whatever.”

Eliot felt his mind warp a little when Parker said contemplatively, “I think I might like you guys.”

“Alright,” Nate said, clapping his hands. He already had on his Mastermind face. “How much do you three know about Bermuda?”

As the three kids traded wary, confused looks, Eliot felt his world even out a little. And it was strangely hilarious that Nate could weird out the Council kids just by being himself.

   
 


	3. Plan B

Nate’s brain was buzzing. “Alright, Connor, you don’t really have to get close. They’re probably watching for you anyway.”

“Does he always nag?” Connor’s grunt of annoyance echoed through the comms.

Eliot ignored him as he growled, “I don’t like this.”

“Quiet,” Nate said, flapping a hand at the irritated man. “Kit needs to know whatever it was she was babbling about the wards, Parker needs time to finish setting up her rig on the roof, and Sophie needs to make an entrance. We need a distraction and that’s Connor.”

“I could be on the street,” Eliot pointed out.

“We can’t be connected to Connor. Not yet,” Nate said, shifting uncomfortably.

He wasn’t strictly happy about this. It was like trying to run two crews on two separate cons that both just _happened_ to have the same target. Plus, because he didn’t really understand the magic stuff and didn’t really know what these three were capable of, he was wandering around blind for parts of it.

“Nate, I think something’s up,” Connor said down the line. One glance at the monitor showed he hadn’t moved from his lean on the light pole across from Darwin Industries.

“What do you see?” Nate asked, instantly concerned.

“Nothing. It’s just a feeling,” Connor grumbled.

His concern gave way to irritation and he was all set to snap when Eliot interrupted anxiously, “What kind of feeling, Con?”

And it was the implicit trust, the expectation of a reasonable answer that stilled Nate’s tongue.

“The ‘they took the wrong bait’ feeling,” Connor said lowly.

Dread washed through him and he said, “Ladies, check in, please?” All he got back was static. “Sophie? Parker? Kit?”

“Crap,” Carlos, sitting across from the behind a pile of books, said succinctly. “If the number of sacrifices needed is four instead of one, that changes things.”

“He couldn’t know I’d come to Leverage,” Connor argued. Some part of Nate’s brain filed away that the kid was excellent at appearing nonchalant yet vaguely threatening, even under pressure.

“He probably figured you’d go home,” Carlos said archly.

“Shit,” Connor bit out.

“Uh huh,” Carlos agreed, flipping pages so quick, he couldn’t have been actually reading anything.

Eliot threw up his hands. “What the hell does that mean?”

“The main army of the Council consists of very special teenage girls,” Nate said quietly.

“And the best of the best in the con world are ‘special’,” Carlos said.

“ _I’m_ normal,” Nate said.

“Of course you are.” It was really weird to have Carlos’s words literally echoed in his ear by Connor.

“Well, I am normal,” Hardison, looking at them with wide eyes as he pressed his hands to his chest.

Carlos slowly peeped over his stack of books, then just as slowly sank out of sight. Connor let out a snort.

“I’m normal,” Eliot said a little warily after the last two had tried and failed to get a straight answer.

“Yes, _you_ are,” Connor said archly and Eliot winced at the tone. “’Special’, for most people, just means they’ve got excellent intuition because, somewhere a few thousand years in the past, their great-granny got it on with something a lot less normal.”

“In our world, they’re called Intuits,” Carlos said, rolling back so they could see him. He spread his hands. “Sophie and Nate, definitely Intuits. They have natural skill at reading people and situations. If they were a little stronger, they’d probably have smaller, extra gifts. Seers, prophets, hedge witches, all the way up to mages and Wiccans of Willow’s caliber. If Intuits develop their skills and rigorously train, they can be exceptionally powerful.”

“We don’t know for sure what Parker’s brand of weird is,” Connor cut in. “We’re betting something with flight.”

Carlos nodded. “The way she moves. The way she can sneak up on anyone. The lack of fear of death. She’s a little more ‘special’ than Sophie and Nate.”

“Hardison’s just a little freaky with a lot of human genius,” Connor said, shrugging.

“So, sorry dude, you’re less special than everybody else, but I wouldn’t say you were normal,” Carlos finished with a shrug of his own.

“And that whole spiel was a long-winded way of saying our douchebag now has four women that run the gamut of special,” Connor said, a little growl in his voice.

Nate’s stomach dropped and he said, “Time for plan B.”  
 


	4. Girl Power

Parker didn’t like this place. There was a pretty girl she was assuming was Dawn sleeping naked under a sheet on a stone bench or whatever. Kit was knocked out and bleeding from the head. And Sophie actually looked terrified. Plus, there weren’t any windows or air vents and the only door couldn’t be picked open. She didn’t like being in a place with no escape.

Sophie checked on Kit again as she said, “Everything will be fine, Parker. Please sit down.”

“You don’t know that everything’s gonna be okay. You can’t know that because they took our comms and Nate doesn’t even know we’re missing and Kit’s bleeding from the head so she can’t even do magic and…” Parker was getting more and more wound up, pacing quicker with each new word and worry.

“Parker!” Sophie shouted sharply and Parker stilled. Sophie’d never really yelled at her before. “One of the others will figure it out, Kit will wake up, and we will be fine. So please. Sit. Try to be calm.”

Parker finally sat on the stone bench beside the naked girl. “You’re worried, too,” she said quietly. “You’re frowning in the way that’s going to give you wrinkles.”

Sophie’s face instantly smoothed out. “Yes, well, just because we’ll _be_ fine doesn’t mean I don’t get to fret about the time before the rescue.”

The door was wrenched open, startling them, and Connor’s bloodied mess of a body was heaved into the room, landing with a solid, bone crunching thump. Sophie went white even as she hurried to try to sort him out. Parker hopped up but she didn’t really know him and she didn’t really like touching people she didn’t know. 

But he was Eliot’s little brother and she knew little brothers so she stepped forward and helped Sophie straighten him out. He blinked up at them when he was finally lying flat on his back, extremities in some semblance of an order.

“Hey,” he croaked and Parker snorted a laugh.

“Parker,” Sophie chastised even as she reached down to smooth a hand through Connor’s hair, probably looking for a head wound or maybe to comfort. 

“He sounds like a frog,” Parker said, defending herself. 

Connor smiled, showing bloodied teeth. “Yeah, throttling will do that.”

Sophie made a sound, harsh and wounded, and her hand slid down to pull Connor’s shirt away from his neck. The ring of purpling was disturbing, even to Parker. 

“Don’t worry,” Connor rasped, a wavering hand coming up to push Sophie’s away from his shirt. “I’ve had worse. Just give me a couple of minutes and we’ll get this rescue started.”

His hand slipped shakily up his shirt and Parker stepped back because that seemed a little kinky to her. He pressed on a brand on his stomach and groaned, though, as the brand opened and he slowly pulled a little black back out of his skin. He made a sound like a wounded animal just as the bag popped out and Parker was pretty sure he wasn’t thinking anything sex-like, so she moved closer to him again.

The hole in his stomach started to close, brand-free, as he fumbled the bag open and pulled out comms.

The first thing she heard when she slipped it in her ear was Hardison saying, “That was just nasty. Eliot, yo brother’s nasty.”

Connor let out a snort even as he closed his eyes and curled up on his side in the fetal position. “You know you love me.” Sophie’s hand hovered, unsure, before finally landing on his shoulder. Parker forced herself to set a hand in his hair because she was pretty sure that that was magic and he really was working towards helping rescue them and he didn’t have to be here and he didn’t have to do this. “Carlos, why’d I let you do that again?”

“Because you trust me,” came a quiet voice in her ear. “Take the tabs in the bag.”

“I don’t like the tabs,” Connor said, a little bit of a whine to his voice. If he’d let somebody put a hole in his body the size of her fist without much complaint, Parker sort of hated to see what these tabs did to him.

“Stop arguing with me,” Carlos demanded. “You got beat to shit and you actually have to be able to move. Now take the tabs.”

Connor opened the bag and pulled out two little white pills that basically looked like aspirin and looked up at Sophie and Parker. “You guys have to haul Kit and Dawn out of here. I’m going to be clearing the path and I probably won’t be thinking about much else. Just…don’t worry about any damage, the Council can fix it, and don’t get too close to me.”

He popped the pills before they could argue and pulled a blade as long as Parker’s arm out of the little bag before he stuffed the bag in his pocket. Parker watched him, his eyes on hers, and she saw it. She saw when his brain went from pain addled and human to that lizard brain everyone had inside them that said, ‘It’s time to survive now.’

She slowly backed away, unsurprised to see Sophie do the same. Connor hopped up, scanned the room, then proceeded to kick the door. It was a 5 inch thick door and it shouldn’t be going anywhere. There was a dent forming in the middle, though, and dust was shaking free of the ceiling. He was going to alert everyone in the building to their presence but Parker was pretty sure he didn’t care.

Parker had always been in shape and particularly strong because doing what she did required a body that did exactly what she wanted it to. She scooped up Dawn, leaving Sophie to grab Kit under the arms and pull her along. The door gave with a groan, clattering to the floor and Parker and Sophie were left to follow in Connor’s wake of destruction.

Parker had seen violence, had even exacted a little herself, but she’d never seen anything quite like what Connor was doing. Of course, what he was doing it to didn’t seem all that human and she couldn’t quite bring herself to argue. Not that Connor would have heard her.

They cleared the basement and she saw Eliot waiting for them, human bodies lying groaning or still on the floor. He picked up Kit because Sophie seemed about to keel over and he led them to the back door. It swung open and they all rushed out, the door clanging shut behind them.

Connor spun and Carlos, hood pulled up over his head and hand attached to the building, thrust out a hand, something bursting out of him and into Connor. Connor sank to the ground, asleep, and Carlos let go of the wall and scooped him up. A van squealed to a stop at the mouth of the alley and they ran for it, the doors sliding open just as they got there.

“Connor,” Eliot started

Carlos waved him off. “He’ll be fine. He’s just in a healing sleep. When his mind and body are ready, he’ll wake up.”

He settled his hands over Dawn and little green electrical tentacles came out of his fingers, trying to feel their way inside. He pulled his hands away and scrubbed his face before moving to Kit.

“Is she-,” Parker started, suddenly worried that they’d just managed to rescue the body and not the girl.

“Enchanted sleep,” he said wearily. “I haven’t got the juice to break through it.”

He settled his hands around Kit’s head and there were green lights and Kit groaned, opening unfocused eyes for the first time since this whole thing began. Carlos staggered up, then dropped back on his butt, pressing the heel of his hand to his temple as his nose started to gush blood.

“Hey ,” Eliot said, reaching out to grab hold of his arm as he wavered.

“I’m fine,” Carlos said but Parker was pretty sure he was lying because he was starting to twitch a little and the bleeding still hadn’t stopped. “I’ll be fine,” he corrected, curling in on himself and sort of toppling sideways onto Connor.

“Well, that went splendidly,” Sophie said sarcastically.

“You should have seen it,” Hardison said, a little giddily. “It was like Mighty Mouse to the rescue, times two!”

Parker figured it’d gone okay. Nobody’d died. Well, except for the bad guys.  
 


	5. The Flipside

As soon as they got back into the office, everybody noticed something was wrong. Since they had their arms full of sleeping children, it was a little bit frightening. They couldn’t just drop them, could they? But they were faced with a dark haired man with mass bruising down one side of his face and one red haired and one blonde woman, each pristine.

The dark haired man sighed. “Well, when they fuck up, at least they normally fix it.”

Sophie would be glad when Connor finally disappeared back to that castle Eliot swore he lived in. The boy seemed to attract more trouble than even she had ever managed to. The dark haired man swept forward, tussling Connor’s hair as he passed, even if the boy was asleep, before he reached out and took Dawn from Nate’s arms.

Carlos, who was strung between Parker and herself, managed to lift his head and slur, “Hey, Xander.”

“Hey, Carlos,” Xander said quietly, shaking his head. “I thought we had a deal. You graduate college before you get involved with Council shit.”

Carlos grinned goofily which made the dark circles under his eyes look ghastly. “Connor called.”

Xander rolled his eye as he gently lay Dawn on the conference room table, stepping back as the redhead stepped forward, set a hand over Dawn’s chest, balled it, then yanked. Dawn jerked up sucking in air, blue eyes wide. The redhead and Xander both grabbed a shoulder and the sheet to keep her covered.

“Why is my butt cold?” she asked, bewildered, before looking down and gasping, wrapping both arms around the sheet as she blushed. “Aw, jeez. I’m naked again.”

Xander snorted as he wove back into the Leverage crew, taking Carlos from them and steering him into a seat at the table. The redhead hooked him up to some kind of i.v. that had color immediately coming back into his cheeks. 

“If you’d stayed home, you wouldn’t be inconveniently naked again,” the blonde said, a little finger wagging going on.

Dawn’s eyes rolled. “Like you never skipped out when you weren’t supposed to. And like you never gotten kidnapped. Ooh! Ooh!! _I’ve_ never died!”

The blonde put her finger away and her scowl deepened. “Giles says you’re on probation.” Then she stuck out her tongue at Dawn.

Xander shook his head and whispered, “Sisters,” so that only the crew could hear as he gently lifted Kit from Hardison’s arms. She blinked dazedly at him before pressing her head into his neck and slumping into sleep. Xander grunted as she went to dead weight but sat with her on his lap as the redhead started checking her over.

The blonde pursed her lips as she looked at Eliot holding Connor. “I’m pretty sure you’d try to punch me if I took him,” she said, crossing her arms. “And that wouldn’t end well for anybody.”

Eliot was still, absolutely still, and Sophie tensed all over for him. 

“You’re the Ms. Summers he’s always talking about,” Eliot said, arms flexing under his little brother.

She nodded swiftly. “Buffy Summers. Call me Buffy, please. Ms. Summers was my mother.” She shifted closer to Connor and set a gentle hand on his head.

“He got throttled,” Parker blurted. “And he had a hole in his stomach.”

The redhead moved up, not at all worried when Eliot scowled at her. She took Connor’s hand and frowned. “He should be waking up any minute now,” she said after a second and both she and Buffy backed away.

Connor jackknifed out of Eliot’s arms, somehow managing to land on his feet, swinging around as he took everyone in. He calmed once he realized he was amongst friends and Sophie was heartily glad because if she never again saw carnage like he’d left at Darwin Industries, she could die a happy woman.

He smiled sheepishly at Summers and the redhead and said, “I guess we’re busted.”

“So busted,” the redhead said, then pulled him into a hug.

“Toast,” Summers said, and there was something just a little foreboding about her tone.

And without another word, the Council children were hauled away to begin their penance for not staying where they were put. Sophie glanced at Eliot but he mostly looked like his normal grumpy self. She supposed he’d had years to get used to Council antics.

   
 


	6. Epilogue

Showing up out of the blue was what Connor did. Showing up in Boston after Eliot had reconnected with his old crew wasn’t surprising. Not to Eliot, anyway. He was used to Connor knowing where he was at, classification be damned. At least, Connor hoped he was.

Connor had never actually disliked Aimee. She just, she couldn’t understand what it was like to be broken, then remade. And their father, well, he’d been very good at breaking things.

He was pretty sure Parker understood. And Hardison, at least, was pretty decent at rolling with the weird. So that was why, when Eliot drifted to a stop beside him, hands deep in his pockets, Connor bumped shoulders with his big brother.

“So, you know, thanks. For Dawn. And Kit,” Connor said, looking into blue eyes as familiar as his own.

“Yeah, well. Parker,” Eliot said with a shrug. “And Sophie.”

Connor rolled his eyes because, hey, if he hadn’t come to Eliot, Parker and Sophie and, hell, Kit wouldn’t have been pulled into it.

“Kit’s nice,” Eliot ventured, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. 

Connor snorted. “And Parker is totally sane.” He gave his brother a droll look. “Kit’s not interested in me.”

“She came when you called,” Eliot countered. “That means something.”

Connor swallowed, then said kind of low, “Carlos came, too.”

“I noticed that,” Eliot said neutrally. 

They lapsed into silence, which was honestly how they were most comfortable.

But there was one last thing Connor had to say. Well, two last things but whatever. “I approve, you know. Of Leverage, Inc. And of Parker and Hardison, too.”

“I’m not-,” Eliot instantly started.

“Don’t,” Connor said, cutting him off even as his eyes never left the riverfront. “I saw how you were. Him, too. You made a weird little family of five and that’s cool.”

“You’re my brother,” Eliot said, bumping his shoulder.

And since they both knew, since they’d known since Connor was fifteen and he’d been hit by that van that he really wasn’t, the words would’ve just been words if Eliot had been anyone but who he was. Because Eliot said what he meant and meant what he said.

Connor smiled, bumping back, before starting to walk away backwards. “Oh, and do me a favor. Tell Parker the girls would really like her to come back sometime. They like learning to pick locks and they promise to show her how to do a high wire thing.”

And then he laughed and let the crowd swallow him up, Eliot’s slightly terrified look going into his ‘good’ memory bank.

   
 


End file.
